Talk:Prismatic dragon
Fear aura missing Would it be worth noting in the article that this dragon does not possess the standard aura of dragon fear? I do not know if this was intentional on the part of BioWare or if there are other true dragons in their default palette that exhibit a similar deficiency (not yet, anyway ;)). Comments? --Iconclast 14:05, May 9, 2012 (UTC) * I guess a fear aura is rather characteristic of dragons. Note added. --The Krit 01:00, June 5, 2012 (UTC) Quantitative vs. qualitative skills One reason that I have not been including explicit skill ranks in the articles is because the number of ranks is (almost) never directly used during the game. If someone wants to taunt a prismatic dragon (going against concentration ranks of 60), is a taunt skill of 60 good enough for a 50-50-ish chance? No, since the dragon's concentration skill is 60 + constitution modifier = 75. Mentioning the ranks means that a reader still has to do calculations to figure out skill levels. On the other hand, supplying explicit modified skill levels would raise the question (from readers) of why a skill like hide is listed (skill level 13), but not discipline (skill level 19, but no ranks). Another option would be to list all skills, but that would obscure which skills the creature is good at (by providing too much information). The solution I came up with was to qualitatively describe the ranks. This gets rid of the need to come up with specific numbers (that end up being misleading in one way or another), while still letting readers know what a creature is good at. --The Krit 01:21, June 5, 2012 (UTC) * (Per the latest correction to "Saves" section). Does this mean that the level appearing in the toolset for skills of creatures are solely allocated ranks (similar to how a PC distributes ranks during creation & level-ups) and NEVER includes related boosts (like from feats and ability modifiers)? If a feat like Epic Skill Focus: Spellcraft is specified in the blueprint, would that also need to be reflected in the article by incrementing the saves vs. spells by another 2? --Iconclast 14:36, June 5, 2012 (UTC) :* The Toolset skills are skill ranks, sans feats, ability modifiers, or other effects. So, a toolset creature with 3 ranks showing in appraise under the Skills tab, the Silver Palm feat, and an intelligence of 15 would have an overall skill level of 3+2+2=7, not counting equipment or effects (like Bard Song). - MrZork 19:30, June 5, 2012 (UTC) * I have wondered about this before, so thank you for the explanation. Personally, I am glad to see a number. Whether it's skill ranks or skill levels isn't critical, as long as it is clear which it was (maybe link the first listed number with the skill ranks article?). Listing ranks makes it easier to justify only listing the skills with non-zero ranks. : The difficulty with the qualitative approach is that it's relative, both to the writer of the article and to context of the reader. I suppose that "relative to the challenge rating" should help inform the qualitative assessment, but even then a player can be left wondering. To re-use the example, will a taunt work against a dracolich, whose concentration is listed as "somewhat low"? That might imply that a casual taunter might have a chance to taunt. But, with 30 ranks and a +10 CON modifier, a PC is not likely to succeed in the taunt without a fairly high taunt skill. Listing the skill ranks allows a player to decide on his own what the information means, without worrying whether the writer might have thought 40 skill levels of concentration was somewhat low. - MrZork 19:30, June 5, 2012 (UTC) :* Well I can recognize the dilemma TK faced when deciding on a unilateral approach and the possibility of calculating all the skill levels for those not requiring training. I suspect there would be little value in displaying that information and probably not effort-effective as well. True, his qualitative rating is subjective and I find it a bit like throwing darts at a wall to decide if 1 or 2 or 3 points astray from a general formula qualifies a level for a particular category. Finally, I decided only to rate those that were obvious and required little consideration... to streamline the assessment process. Furnishing only the numbers is about as streamlined as it can get and it requires no other peripheral calculation. :: The "sticky wicket" for me is that modifiers may be reflected in the Saves but ignored in the Skills. Other than it being a matter of expediting the publications themselves (i.e. exhaustive effort to capture all modified skill levels), this seems like a personal bias. As long as it is consistent, one way or the other, it works for me. ;) --Iconclast 21:31, June 6, 2012 (UTC) ::* Perhaps the clearest presentation would be to post the skill ranks as you have done and have the Skill: at the beginning of the line link to the skill rank article. That would indicate that the raw ranks are given and let readers add ability modifiers and so on themselves. It would require tweaking the creature template, though. ::: Another approach would be to list skills as they are in the CBC output page, with skill ranks first, followed by skill levels in parenthesis that account for ability modifiers and feats. Of course, that is more work. And, more importantly, it is a much more error-prone process as it would require checking properties granted by all equipped items in addition to feats. - MrZork 21:53, June 6, 2012 (UTC) :* Some quick tidbits: One problem scenario I envision with using the ranks is, for example, someone looking at the dracolich article, seeing concentration ranks at 30, then looking at their character sheet, seeing a taunt skill of 30 and concluding that a taunt would be about a 50-50 shot. (Not sure how this plays into the "casual" taunter scenario, though, as I do not know what would be considered "casual".) I find it interesting that there is an assumption that explicitly listing "30" would lead someone to then cross-reference the constitution modifier, but an intentionally vague "somewhat low" would not. :: On the other hand, it does not take a fairly high taunt skill to succeed, just someone with maxed skill ranks (the "normal" in the qualitative scheme; any sort of "high" for a PC would suggest skill focus) and comparable hit dice. A level 37 PC could have 40 ranks in taunt and thus have a decent chance of successfully taunting. A PC with less than that would (probably) be at most somewhat low in the skill themselves, so could conclude that going up against "somewhat low" concentration is a plausible, yet questionable, plan. :: (Apologies if this is not as clear as I would like it to be. I've been distracted the past few days, and my writing seems to suffer because of it.) --The Krit 22:21, June 6, 2012 (UTC) ::: Your distracted writing is still superior to mine. But, I'll try to touch on some of those points. :::*I suppose my unfortunate use of "casual" suffers from the same issue to which I was attempting to call attention regarding qualitative terms in the article: It isn't a well-defined term, so no one can be sure what it really means. I think terms like "moderately low" and so on have the same problem. What I intended by "casual taunter" was a player who buys a rank of taunt every couple levels, but doesn't max the skill. The player might be thinking it would be of use against mobs or some non-caster bosses (as many have no skill ranks in concentration), but not opponents who tend to put maximum skill points into concentration. But, as you note, merely having that connotation in my head doesn't mean that anyone else will. :::*''I find it interesting that there is an assumption that explicitly listing "30" would lead someone to then cross-reference the constitution modifier, but an intentionally vague "somewhat low" would not.'' I'm not sure what you're getting at there. The idea of listing the number with the skill rank link was to give readers a link to exactly what the given number means, the goal being that, knowing what skill ranks are, they will know (or can use the wiki to discover) that other factors contribute to the final skill level and hopefully the creature article has enough info (e.g. feats and abilities) to determine those factors. The problem with someone cross-referencing constitution after seeing only a "somewhat low" concentration skill is that he still doesn't know what the creature's concentration skill actually is (in ranks or levels) and the concentration link doesn't help him find out. He still must open the toolset to determine what impact the information might have on his playing strategy or whatever. :::*''On the other hand, it does not take a fairly high taunt skill to succeed, just someone with maxed skill ranks (the "normal" in the qualitative scheme; any sort of "high" for a PC would suggest skill focus) and comparable hit dice.'' This illustrates again a problem with the qualitative description. Perhaps those meanings for "normal" and "high" are well understood by more experienced players, but I didn't know that maxed ranks in a skill without skill focus only qualifies as "normal" and I suspect that I'm not alone in that ignorance. (Just as a point of reference via google, on the epic builds search engine fewer than 20 epic builds would have better than "normal" concentration, in the sense of having the ESF:concentration feat. And that includes about 500 "caster" builds with 20+ bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, or wizard levels.) Either way, it seems like the wiki would be more useful if it did not make the assumption that readers will know that terminology. :::Anyway, my preference is to have at least one exact number. Having both skill ranks and skill levels would be great, but perhaps not practical. But, even given ranks alone (and clarity that ranks are what's given), the other data in the creature article should be enough to get a reader very close to any related number he may need. - MrZork 09:05, June 7, 2012 (UTC) * I've had two ideas that I find acceptable. The easier one is for me to add the meanings of "high" and "low" somewhere, probably the skill article. The other is for me to change "Skills:" to "Trained skills:" in all the creature articles, then someone can go through all the articles to replace the qualitative descriptions with the fully modified skill levels (so almost like what is in this article, but with ability modifiers, feat modifiers, item properties, etc. added in). I suppose the latter is the better method, but it takes more work (and I am lazy, after all). --The Krit 16:36, June 8, 2012 (UTC) :* For me, the "Trained skills" suggestion seems a good way to go... first, it means that all values furnished in a creature article (AB, AC, HP, Saves, Skills) will be completely comprehensive and reflect what will occur in-game BY DEFAULT ... and secondly, just the term itself seems more explicit in regard to what information the article is attempting to convey. :: My own suggestion is to display the term as something like "Trained skills:" and then add a Toolset section in the Skill article to clarify that the values appearing on the Skills tab of toolset does NOT reflect the effect of any of the modifiers. I realize this may be obvious to many, but it wasn't to me or my cohorts. I had always assumed that the skill values reflected all the ability modifiers and feat adjustments (plus any item enhancements, in those cases) pre-calculated by the designer of the creature blueprint. Yes, the additional skill information will definitely be more work, but IMO there would be value-added and could be incorporated into new creature articles by default. (I believe a spreadsheet could incorporate all the skill modifiers with some straight-forward formulas to calculate the modified levels automatically, but dunno if algorithms can be created in wiki code to accomplish something like this.) :: I'd like to hear other opinions, though, before attempting to post any new creature articles. --Iconclast 20:22, June 8, 2012 (UTC) ::* You did not find it odd that creatures have so many skills at zero in that window? That would be normal for skill ranks, but it's not really possible for so many (net) skill levels to be at zero unless the creature's abilities are all 10 or 11. (Not to mention that the header for that column is "Rank".) Anyway, that would be part of using the Toolset, so seems more appropriate for a Toolset how-to article than the skill article. --The Krit 22:39, June 8, 2012 (UTC) :::* Odd? No, or I would not be questioning the dynamics here. Why not odd? Because skill assignment via toolset is completely distinct from how skills are assigned during character creation and level-up. So why would the addition of modifiers follow a similar procedure? For instance, I can create a Level 1 barbarian with CHA 18, and 25 ranks in each of Animal Empathy, Perform & UMD. Now, in-game will all those skills be incremented by +4? And who cares if they are? The NPC barb won't sing, try to convert animals or try use restricted items anyway. According to the deliberation within this Talk section (poor 'ol Prismatic dragon *lol*), I would have to guess that they all would be +4, though. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to confirm this, so I cannot be absolutely sure whether the NPC class skill constraints are just as rigid as the player characters are. But the fact that a blueprint designer uses assignment rules differently than the game forces a PC to, gives me reason to doubt if the game even modifies those ranks at all and treats it completely different... a view not that strange for anyone who has never gotten involved with customizations, scripting, 2da modification, and so on. :::: I think the problem of presenting an effective universal perspective when writing articles, whether it be within the bounds of this wiki or any other, is that an author (or admin, for that matter) make a significant effort to maintain a very generic presentation, meaning that it communicates with the widest audience possible, neophytes to experienced. Whether or not the author wants to go that extra mile to assure global understanding is up to them. (As an example, I can pretty much guarantee that all the engineering documentation I have written in the past in the optoelectronics field that were easily understood by the community that used them every day would appear hieroglyphic to all except those directly connected with that industry and would need to be rewritten completely for the layman to grasp, most effectively by another layman or journeyman.) Don't assume that a contributor or casual reader can instinctively call upon an extensive library of resources and experiences that a veteran recognizes by rote. All that can be done is to help to set up a manageable standard, canvass for other perspectives and then implement a new format based on consensus, the bigger and more diverse the sample the better. The History pages will explain to those wondering about the policy change or seeming inconsistencies between related articles, if they are curious. :::: Calculating the modified level for each of those listed in the toolset tab is no more involved (for me, anyway), than assigning subjective ratings. Therefore, henceforward I will either be furnishing integers OR just the skill names that have ranks assigned in the toolset sans numbers or ratings pending a consensus one way or the other. --Iconclast 21:40, June 9, 2012 (UTC) ::::* I'm trying to remember where I saw a statement along the lines of "D&D rules compliance is enforced less strictly in the Toolset than in the game client". The same game mechanics are in effect, but many restrictions and limitations are ignored. You assign things like feats and skill ranks, just as you would during character creation and level-up, but without being limited as to how many can be allocated. (Doing otherwise would make coding the game more complex, so there is really no reason to make separate mechanics for PCs and NPCs. Someone was following the "keep it simple" principle.) Sorry, I thought that was part of the Toolset documentation, but I cannot find that statement now. --The Krit 01:44, June 10, 2012 (UTC) ::* Regarding the wiki automatically calculating the skill info: Since the game does it and the CBC does it, there must be some way to get the wiki to do the same table lookup and arimetiic. However, judging by the CBC, such would be a potentially huge undertaking... - MrZork 23:28, June 8, 2012 (UTC) :::* Bad logic. Wikis are not designed as calculators, so you might as well conclude that since the game does it and the CBC does it, there must be some way to get Minesweeper to do the same calculation. OK, not a fair comparison, but access to data does not mean software is capable of manipulating the data. At best, it would be a huge mess to get the wiki to do these calculations that really are not that hard to do by hand. Besides, it's generally bad design to have calculations done every time a page is viewed instead of of doing them once when writing the page. --The Krit 11:17, June 9, 2012 (UTC) :* I think changing "Skills:" to "Trained skills:" is a very good idea, clarifying that the skills shown are those in which the creature has bought skill ranks. :: Adding articles on what the qualitative terms mean is a workable approach, though it sort of ends up being a set of wiki articles explaining official wiki terms, rather than wiki articles explaining official NWN terms. And, if the terms describe skill levels (instead of ranks) of trained skills, then it's as much work to add them to the creature info as it would be to just use the numbers. :: I take it from the two acceptable options listed that listing the skill ranks (and clarifying that that is what they are) is not an acceptable option. I certainly agree that the nicest listing is of final skill levels, as it reduces the need for the reader to look at ability modifiers and feats (and items). But, I think ranks would serve, too, since most of the time the difference between the two will just be the ability modifier. - MrZork 23:28, June 8, 2012 (UTC) ::* If you want to label a list of ranks you could always label it "Skill ranks:"; as far as designing a "calculator" template that would require a vast changes to the current creature templates to have feat parameters not only visible to the reader, but also used in calculations to create parameters. WhiZard 23:56, June 8, 2012 (UTC) ::* I did not suggest adding articles. I suggested adding to an existing article (singular). And I thought we already went over how I've been using the qualitative terms to describe ranks, not levels. ::: Let me repeat: I am lazy. If I was going to go through the trouble of calculating skill levels, I would have put those numbers in the creature articles. I did not do that. I did not calculate skill levels. However, I recognized that listing skill ranks would just lead to confusion because people would want to compare the numbers in the articles to the numbers in their character sheets. So to provide some indication of which skills were strong without giving misleading numbers, I went with the qualitative descriptions. Qualitative for ranks; quantitative for levels. ::: Aside from the tumble bonus to AC (which should already be factored into the listed AC), raw ranks are only useful as a step towards calculating skill levels. If you want to provide hard numbers for readers, you might as well give them numbers that are directly useful (with the side-effect of the readers not being required to recognize the cases when there is something besides the ability modifier to add). Do the articles list total attack bonus or do they give the base attack bonus and leave it to the reader to add whatever other modifiers apply? Do the articles not already include the strength modifier when listing damage? Does the armor class not already include the dexterity modifier? Hit points the constitution bonus? Saves the relevant ability modifiers? There is a whole theme here of providing useful numbers, not mere elements for a calculation. Skill levels are useful. Ranks are (most of the time) mere elements for a calculation. ::: If someone would have just brought this up when I started revamping the creature articles, it would have saved this huge discussion and there would be a lot fewer articles to revise. In fact, I'm thinking it might just be easier to go and do some of this stuff than to keep trying to offload it onto others. --The Krit 11:17, June 9, 2012 (UTC) :::* That can be said of most expedition, TK. ;) Hindsight is always 20-20 so we just pull up our socks and move forward the best we can. Perfection only exists in a vacuum. The most important is to set a guideline for future articles to reflect what seems to be the best AT THIS TIME. It doesn't mean that another issue will not occur in the future to cause more hair-pulling... it is only in expression of the present that we have any control. Revisions to those articles not complying with a new standard will occur in time but let us not compound the revision process by continuing to add to a legacy that does not coincide with the issues discussed here, all of which I view as very proactive in nature. --Iconclast 21:40, June 9, 2012 (UTC)